


the ghost,

by nanchatte



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6220342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanchatte/pseuds/nanchatte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alayne dreams of wolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ghost,

Sometimes, deep at night while the Vale sleeps away the growing frost, Alayne becomes Sansa Stark once again. She is different to the summer girl she remembers from the halls of Winterfell. Her fur coat is no temporary garment to shed beneath blankets or in the bath. It’s real—she can feel the white wind in it, the tips hard with cold.

She is not alone.

“Jon,” she says, to a white wolf with eyes like rubies. The colour reminds her of something Alayne would like to forget, dripping down the steps of Baelor’s sept. She turns from Jon, to the blizzard to the north. From in between curtains of snowfall she can glimpse a sea of evergreens. Wildling territory.

“Winter is coming,” says Jon the wolf, but it sounds so much like her father that her hackles raise involuntarily.

“But what does that _mean_?” she asks, desperately. “Jon, our brothers—“

It occurs to Alayne that this is the first time she’s addressed Jon as _one_ of her. What she would not do to see his face, so alike Ned Stark’s. A bastard he may be, but now she was akin to him. Not even a Snow, a Stone. 

“Arya, too,” she says, softly. But the great white wolf just blinks and stares out at the storm.

Winter is coming—those prophetic Stark words so miserable and curt. She had dreamed of lions and roses, glimmering suns and even, secretly, three-headed dragons. She had been stupid and Jon was too. Winter was not coming, it _had_ come. For all of them.

“Jon,” she says. Her voice sounds so much older now, than it did when she occasionally shared conversation with her baseborn brother. “I’m not Sansa Stark anymore. I’m _Alayne_ , a Stone. Littlefinger’s bastard daughter. At least you’re a Stark bastard, Jon. I’m not a Stark at all now.”

The white wolf lifts its head and regards her with that gruesome stare. And then, suddenly, there’s voices from down the Wall, shouts and the clash of steel. Jon rips back his lips and snarls, so low that Alayne is convinced she can feel the foundation of ice shake beneath her paws.

“Kill the bloody wolf,” screams a man. “Don’t you know Jon Snow’s a warg? He’s alive, in that beast!”

Jon lunges at the shimmer of steel and Alayne wakes with a gasp.  
-*-

The next dream is worse. The great black wolf she knows to be her littlest brother Rickon tries to clasp his jaw around her jugular, tear out her throat, but it snaps through thin air.

The wolf backs away, green eyes blaring with suspicion. This place is strange and foreign, a place so evil Alayne is hardly surprised her brother has gone savage.

“It’s me!” Alayne pleads. “It’s Sansa! Oh, Rickon, it’s _Sansa_!”

But she’s not Sansa when she awakes, and no matter what sweet nothings Petyr Baelish whispers in her ear, she feels more Alayne than ever before.

-*-

Bran is not alone. He’s a skinny wolf, deep in the snow far beyond the Wall and running with strangers. Despite his ribs like cliffsides and his long face gaunt, there is a soulful look about him in that amber gaze. He almost grins.

“Lady?” he asks.

Alayne shakes her head. “Lady’s dead. It was all Arya’s stupid fault, but I can’t feel the same anger about it all that I used to. Arya’s dead. They said you were too, Bran.”

“Not yet,” says Bran, and Alayne smiles.

They talk—or Alayne does. She tells Bran the wolf about her time in King’s Landing, about Margaery’s promise to wed her to Willas Tyrell and about her marrying The Imp instead. She describes Joffrey’s death, Littlefinger spiriting her away to the Eyrie. She even tells him about Aunt Lysa’s death—her _real_ death—and Bran just says, “I know.”

“How?” Alayne breathes. Snow floats down lazily from the pure white sky. There is a sadness in Bran’s eyes, all boy and not at all wolf.

“I know a lot of things now,” he replies cryptically. 

Alayne shudders. “I dreamt I was at the Wall. Jon was there—or Ghost was. I think he’s in trouble.”

“If he was, we can’t help him, Sansa. I’m so far away from the Wall now, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back—“

“But you _must_ ,” Alayne interrupts. “You’re the Lord of Winterfell now.”

What regret in her brother’s eyes! Alayne wishes she could hold him—kind, gentle, orphaned Bran. She lost a father and gained one. But Bran only has snow, and beasts, and a duty more important than the King of the North.

“No one can know I’m alive, Sansa. I’m sorry, but who will believe your wolf dreams?”

It’s true. In the Vale, Alayne looks around her—at all these men and women so far removed from the war, and the Wall, and old northern magic. She grieves for Bran, and Robb, and Rickon, and Jon Snow. She even grieves for Arya.

-*-

“Lady’s dead,” the big she-wolf spits. These woods are frost-bitten, and bodies litter the forest floor. “So’s Sansa. So’s everyone. Dead, dead, dead—“

“I’m alive, Arya,” Alayne feels so small and feeble in the company of her little sister. Worthless, even. Where is Arya, if she’s alive? Is she safe? Oh, how she longs to tell Littlefinger of her wolf dreams, but a rational man such as Lord Baelish would think lowly of such folly. “Where are you?”

“I’m only Arya when I’m sleeping,” Arya replies. “Otherwise I’m no one.”

“Don’t be stupid—you’re Arya Stark wherever you go.”

The words seem hollow. She, after all, is no longer Sansa Stark and the longer she remains cooped up in hiding, the harder it is to convince herself that she’ll ever be Sansa Stark again. Arya tosses her a glare of derision. There is blood on her maw and shreds of meat between her fangs. She stinks of the dead.

Is it just the wolf who has killed—this giant beast—or are Arya’s girl-hands stained with blood too?

“I wish we’d never left Winterfell,” Alayne admits. “I wish we were back home, with everyone—mother and father, Bran and Rickon and Robb and Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy…”

“That’s your problem,” Arya snarls. “You’re always wishing and wishing and wishing. But wishes are stupid, meaningless _nothing_ , Sansa, and wishes won’t bring any of it back!”

Arya’s right. Alayne wakes up, looks in the mirror and threads brown hair through her long fingers. There is auburn hidden underneath there, and also Sansa Stark.

A wolf.


End file.
